2023 Andrew Lloyd Webber Initiative Recipients Announced!

National Theatre Company Grants

National Rapid Relief Fund
National Rapid Relief Fund
National Rapid Relief Fund
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Broadway is 3,000 miles long
Lucie Arnaz
Presenters Jayne Houdyshell & Cassie Beck
Presenters Jayne Houdyshell & Cassie Beck
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The National Theatre Company Grant is our annual investment in burgeoning theatre companies that innovate and shape their local community through the performing arts.

About the Grant

The National Theatre Company Grant is our annual investment in innovative theatre companies making local impact across the nation by connecting their community to excellence in the performing arts.

We recognize the organizations developing outstanding new work, and fostering education and community engagement by vitalizing regional theatre. Our investment helps these progressive theatre organizations build infrastructure, enhance resources, and create new initiatives.

National Rapid Relief – 2020

With regional theaters going dark in communities all across the nation, the American Theatre Wing is committed to supporting as many of these institutions as possible during their time of need. Through the National Rapid Relief Fund, The Wing made immediate gifts, in the amount of $1,000, to each of the 82 prior recipients of the National Theatre Company Grants. These companies, large and small, play very important cultural and economic roles in their communities, and their survival is fundamental to the nation’s wider recovery effort.

Here is the list of eligible regional theaters:

16th Street Theater (Berwyn, IL)
1812 Productions (Philadelphia, PA)
1st Stage (Tysons, VA)
About Face Theatre (Chicago, IL)
Actors’ Shakespeare Project (Somerville, MA)
American Blues Theater (Chicago, IL)
Amphibian Productions (Fort Worth, TX)
Ars Nova (New York, NY)
ArtsWest (Seattle, WA)
Bag&Baggage Productions (Hillsboro, OR)
Bedlam (New York, NY)
Blackout Theatre Company (Albuquerque, NM)
Boise Contemporary Theater (Boise, ID)
Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company (Boulder, CO)
Buntport Theater Company (Denver, CO)
Cardinal Stage (Bloomington, IN)
Chance Theater (Anaheim, CA)
Chicago Children’s Theatre (Chicago, IL)
Classical Theatre Company (Houston, TX)
Company One (Boston, MA)
Congo Square Theatre Company (Chicago, IL)
Constellation Theatre Company (Washington, DC)
Curious Theatre Company (Denver, CO)
Cygnet Theatre Company (San Diego, CA)
Flint Repertory Theatre (Flint, MI)
Forward Theater Company (Madison, WI)
FUSION Theatre Company  (Albuquerque, NM)
Golden Thread Productions (San Francisco, CA)
Jewel Theatre Company (Santa Cruz, CA)
Kansas City Actors Theatre (Kansas City, MO)
Keen Company (New York, NY)
Know Theatre of Cincinnati (Cincinnati, OH)
Local Theater Company (Boulder, CO)
Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company (Houston, TX)
Millibo Art Theatre (Colorado Springs, CO)
New Jersey Repertory Co. ((Long Branch, NJ)
North Carolina Stage Co. (Asheville, NC)
Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre (Citi Rep) (Oklahoma City, OK)
Pig Iron Theatre Company (Philadelphia, PA)
PlayGround (Berkeley, CA)
Portland Playhouse (Portland, OR)
Profile Theatre (Portland, OR)
Prospect Theater Company, Inc. (New York, NY)
Red Bull Theater (New York, NY)
Road Less Traveled Productions (Buffalo, NY)
Rogue Machine Theatre (Los Angeles, CA)
Rude Mechanicals (Austin, TX)
San Francisco Playhouse (San Francisco, CA)
Short North Stage (Columbus, OH)
Silk Road Rising (Chicago, IL)
South of Broadway Theatre company (Charleston, SC)
Synchronicity Theatre (Atlanta, GA)
Synetic Theater (Arlington, VA)
The Catastrophic Theatre (Houston, TX)
The Cutting Ball Theater (San Francisco, CA)
The Flea Theater (New York, NY)
The House Theatre of Chicago (Chicago, IL)
The Hypocrites (Chicago, IL)
The NOLA Project (New Orleans, LA)
The Play Company (New York, NY)
The Playwrights Realm (New York, NY)
The Rogue Theatre (Los Angeles, CA)
The Serenbe Playhouse (Serenbe, GA)
the TEAM (Brooklyn, NY)
The Theatre @ Boston Court (Pasadena, CA)
Theater Alliance (Washington, DC)
Theater Latte Da (Minneapolis, MN)
Theater Wit (Chicago, IL)
Theatre B (Fargo, ND)
Theatre Horizon (Norristown, PA)
TheatreSquared (Fayetteville, AR)
Third Rail Repertory Theatre (Portland, OR)
TimeLine Theatre Company (Chicago, IL)
Tipping Point Theatre Company (Northville, MI)
Transport Group Theatre Company (New York, NY)
Triad Stage (Greensboro, NC)
True Colors Theatre Company (Atlanta, GA)
Upstream Theater (Saint Louis, MO)
Watts Village Theater Company (Los Angeles, CA)
Wilbury Theatre Group (Providence, RI)
Williamston Theatre (Williamston, MI)
Yellow Tree Theatre (Osseo, MN)

National Theatre Company Grant Recipients

Boise Contemporary Theatre

Boise Contemporary Theater (Boise, ID) inspires their community to examine their perspectives and better understand themselves, each other, and the world around them by creating thought-provoking stories of the human experience. The company’s vision is to be the place people choose for transformational experiences, and be recognized as an irreplaceable driver of the arts and culture in Boise and beyond. In all aspects of what they do, from the rehearsal room to the audience experience, from committee meetings to our relationships with the City of Boise and the American Theater as a whole, Boise Contemporary Theater values Collaboration, Respect, Challenge, Gratitude, and Celebration.

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Boston Court Pasadena

Boston Court Pasadena (Pasadena, CA) is dedicated to creating and presenting works that are innovative, diverse, vital, and adventurous in an intimate setting. They produce plays that challenge both artist and audience, urging their artists to fearlessly and passionately pursue their unique voice and vision. Play selection encompasses a wide variety of genres with an emphasis on new works which are inherently theatrical, textually rich, and visually arresting.Each year, Boston Court Pasadena produces a season of more than 100 exciting performances in theatre and music, including an Emerging Artists Series and a New Play Reading Festival. They also showcase rotating visual art exhibits that complement the themes of their programming.

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Cardinal Stage

Cardinal Stage (Bloomington, IN) advances professional theatre in South-Central Indiana. They aim to cultivate a lifelong passion for the stage by offering diverse, high-quality productions in tandem with outreach and educational initiatives that contribute to the cultural and economic vibrancy of Bloomington and the surrounding region. They are recognized throughout the region for excellence in programming and community outreach from their state of the art performance facility, and in ten years, Cardinal Stage has grown into the largest arts organization in Bloomington.With a fully professional staff and an emerging national profile, they are a key contributor to the quality of life in South-Central Indiana.

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Flint Repertory Theatre

Flint Repertory Theatre (Flint, MI) promises to empower, educate and enrich the city of Flint and surrounding communities with professional, highly imaginative, thought provoking theatre that is challenging, entertaining, and inspiring.For over 60 years, they served young people and their families as Flint Youth Theatre, and are extremely proud of the work they have done. The company has now expanded to serve all ages - the entire population of Flint, Genesee County and the surrounding areas – as Flint Repertory Theatre. Along with a professional season of diverse works, Flint Repertory Theatre continues to provide year-round education classes, camps and workshops for every grade level.

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Local Theater Company

Local Theater Company (Boulder, CO) is a non-profit theater company specializing in original works of exceptional quality. They engage Colorado audiences through innovative performances that spark camaraderie, learning, and contemplation, and provide a resourceful environment for theater artists to take creative risks, and develop new work. The company’s programs are designed for audiences to explore culturally relevant stories, be stimulated and inspired to action, all while strengthening their creative community. They believe theater is a local experience. When you elect to enter an audience, you create a new community where, for that brief span of time, everyone is a local.

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North Carolina Stage Company

North Carolina Stage Company (Asheville, NC) is dedicated to creating theatre that is as consequential as it is entertaining and connecting people to plays that illuminate the shared human experience. They aim to create a community where every person experiences consequential, entertaining and exceptional theatre. North Carolina Stage Company’s dedication to artistic excellence and exploration includes their Education programming and Community Engagement, and they are proud to be the originators of the Catalyst Series, a program that financially supports other local arts organizations that do not yet have their own production space.

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New Jersey Repertory Company

New Jersey Repertory Company (Long Branch, NJ) has a multifaceted mission which includes developing and producing new plays to make a lasting contribution to the American stage, enriching the cultural life of their community and acting as a catalyst for redevelopment, educating and inspiring young people in theater arts and playwriting, nurturing the work of writers from diverse backgrounds and building diverse audiences, and building a regional and national destination for the performing arts. New Jersey Repertory Company is committed to nurturing the work of not only established writers but new and unknown playwrights and has maintained an open-submission policy, receiving over 750 scripts each year from throughout the U.S. and around the world.

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Red Bull Theater

Red Bull Theater (New York, NY) brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences. Their work unites a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility.Red Bull Theater is named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the 12 years of Puritan rule, and was the first London theater to reopen after the Restoration. This bold spirit is central to their identity. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as their cornerstone, Red Bull Theater is New York City’s destination for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. The company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics.

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Silk Road Rising

Silk Road Rising (Chicago, IL) is an art-making and art service organization that works to deepen understanding and shape conversation of Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian cultures within the broader American community. Through storytelling and discourse, they challenge disinformation and promote a culture of continuous learning. Silk Road Rising’s theatrical productions, video plays, in-school arts education, and community engagement programs all share one goal: building multi-dimensional narratives that let us see our common humanity instead of the stereotypes and misperceptions that pull us apart.

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Wilbury Theatre Group

The Wilbury Theatre Group (Providence, RI) makes the world a more compassionate place by challenging, provoking, and engaging their community in conversation through new works, reimagined classics and adventurous playmaking. They believe that theatre is an art form that should be accessible and representative of all peoples, and through their Main Series productions, New Work development programs, Education opportunities, and as producers of the Providence Fringe Festival FRINGEPVD, they create opportunities for civic discussion led by the most underrepresented members of their community. The Wilbury Theatre Group is idealistic, ambitious, and stubborn in their resolve that theatre can be a positive source for social good in the world.

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The Millibo Art Theatre

The Millibo Art Theatre (Colorado Springs, CO) is dedicated to the production and creation of original, professional theater that will challenge, inspire and entertain audiences of all ages throughout the Pikes Peak region and beyond. Recognized as an arts leader in the community, with numerous award-winning shows and exciting community collaborations, the MAT fills a unique niche in the Pikes Peak region as it explores new avenues for empowering and engaging artists, audiences and the community in the creation and appreciation of new theatre.

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Ars Nova

Ars Nova

Ars Nova (New York, NY) is committed to developing and producing theater, comedy and music artists in the early stages of their professional careers. Their unique development programs are designed to support outside-the-box thinking and encourage innovative, genre-bending work. By providing a safe environment where risk-taking and collaboration are paramount, Ars Nova gives voice to a new generation of artists and audiences, pushing the boundaries of live entertainment by nurturing creative ideas into smart, surprising new work. The company provides an artistic home for emerging talent by cultivating a hive of creative activity, both on stage—through developmental programs and performances—and off—through the support and cultivation of a thriving artist community.

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Blackout Theatre Company

Blackout Theatre Company (Albuquerque, NM) is creating stories to engage and ignite community. Blackout is a member of the Network for Ensemble Theatres with a goal to propel ensemble theatre practice to the forefront of the American culture and society. They started with late night sketch comedy shows and eventually moved on to mounting full length productions. Today, Blackout has expanded into a different kind of theatre. In addition to full length productions, they also create their own full length work from scratch, produce sketch comedy videos and web-series for the web, and have an education program that serves hundreds of students a year improving literacy scores through playwriting.

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Chicago Children's Theatre

Chicago Children's Theatre (Chicago, IL) aims to enrich their community through diverse and significant theatrical and educational programming that engages and inspires the child in all of us. Chicago Children’s Theatre (CCT) achieves its mission through the creation of awe-inducing theatrical productions and programs with an emphasis on inclusion, accessibility and affordability; inspiring young people and families to lead lives of adventure, courage, and curiosity.

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Congo Square Theatre Company

Congo Square Theatre Company (Chicago, IL) is a professional ensemble based organization who champions the African American experience by producing definitive and transformative theatre, spawned from the African Diaspora, to enlighten, educate, and inspire everyone. Congo Square Theatre Company seeks to establish itself as an institution of multicultural theatre globally.

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Forward Theater Company

Forward Theater Company (Madison, WI) aims to create a home base for Wisconsin theater professionals and audiences that expands the cultural and economic life of the greater Madison area. They are committed to strengthening the area's economy by spending locally and hiring southern Wisconsin theater artists who live and work there and whose presence enlivens the creative fabric of the community. As a pillar of the local arts scene, Forward Theater Company expands the cultural life of their community by presenting high-quality productions of relevant, through-provoking work that their audiences wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to see, raising awareness of community needs and resources.

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Jewel Theatre Company

Jewel Theatre Company (Santa Cruz, CA) is the only year-round professional theatre company in the Santa Cruz area. JTC is dedicated to creating extraordinary productions that explore and advance the art of theatre by entertaining, enlightening and engaging the community. In fulfilling their mission, Jewel Theatre Company endeavors to be inclusive and collaborative, with both artists and audience, in creating the highest quality theatre that residents and visitors to the central coast will find intriguing and reflective of the region's commitment to excellence in the arts.

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Road Less Traveled Productions

Road Less Traveled Productions (Buffalo, NY) challenges audiences through provocative storytelling and passionate artistry. The RLTP Ensemble constructs bold and imaginative ways to explore, discuss, and understand timely and timeless issues that connect diverse communities, globally and locally, to the commonality of human experience. Their mission is to develop the canon of contemporary voices through production of new and notable works by regional and national playwrights, creating unforgettable live theatre experiences that bring value to our lives.

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Short North Stage

Short North Stage (Columbus, OH) is a professional theater company dedicated to bringing first-class live performance to Columbus's Short North Arts District. Residing in a revitalized and historic theater in Central Ohio, Short North Stage produces or hosts eclectic performances weekly, ranging from Broadway classics and edgy off-Broadway musicals, to progressive one-act plays, cabarets, dance and improv and stand-up comedy. Short North Stage aims to be Columbus's theatrical window on the world and a window for the world on Columbus.

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The NOLA Project

The NOLA Project (New Orleans, LA) is an ensemble-driven theatre company that strives to challenge, entertain, and engage diverse New Orleans audiences through high-quality and innovative performances of relevant great works, the development and production of new plays, and comprehensive educational opportunities for aspiring theatre artists. The NOLA Project’s aim is to continue producing the very finest and most exciting theatre in New Orleans and to put the city of New Orleans on the national map as a major player in the American regional theatre scene.

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The Playwrights Realm

The Playwrights Realm (New York, NY) is devoted to supporting early-career playwrights along the journey of playwriting, helping them hone their craft, fully realize their vision, and build meaningful artistic careers. They pride themselves on providing a very high level of support for the playwrights they work with and meeting their individual needs by making an extensive array of resources available to them. The Realm's innovative model combines elements of producing houses, development centers, and artist service organizations to provide a wide range of resources to help their playwrights create new work and gain a foothold in the theatre community.

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Theatre Horizon

Theatre Horizon (Norristown, PA) seeks to use theatre to create a community of artists, students, and audiences in which each member is encouraged to grow. In carrying out their mission, Theatre Horizon stages stories that illuminate the full range of human experience, bring people together, connect students with theatre artists, and contribute to the revitalization of their underserved town. They have become a neighborhood anchor and a vibrant hub of activity, staging critically-acclaimed productions and reaching more than 900 children per year through classes, summer camps, and the pioneering Autism Drama Program.

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Portland Playhouse

Portland Playhouse (Portland, OR)

Portland Playhouse (Portland, OR) is dedicated to producing quality, intimate performances where the interaction between artists and audience is paramount. Our mission is to create a space where people of ALL social, economic, racial, sexual and political backgrounds can come together to celebrate the complexity of the human experience. Our vision is a world awakened by the wonder of theatre.

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American Blues Theater

American Blues Theater (Chicago, IL)

American Blues Theater (Chicago, IL) is the premier American theater producing visceral theatrical works while engaging its audience in missions of local service agencies. American Blues Theater illuminates the American ideas of freedom, equality, and opportunity in the plays produced and communities served. Their multi-generational and interdisciplined artists have established the second-oldest professional Equity Ensemble theater in Chicago.

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Bedlam

Bedlam (New York, NY) creates works of theatre that reinvigorate traditional forms in a flexible, raw space, collapsing aesthetic distance and bringing its viewers into direct contact with the dangers and delicacies of life. Bedlam is committed to the immediacy of the relationship between the actor and the audience. In this new, fresh, active environment storytelling becomes paramount and the result is a kinetic experience of shared empathy.

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Chance Theater

Chance Theater (Anaheim, CA)

Chance Theater (Anaheim, CA) believes that theater is a gym for empathy. It’s where we go to build the muscles of compassion, to practice listening, understanding and engaging with people that are not like ourselves. It’s a shelter from a world bombarded by media, from technology that may connect us globally but may also keep us from connecting with our own neighbors. Our mission is to utilize the power of live theater to contribute to a more compassionate, connected, and creative community.

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Classical Theatre Company

Classical Theatre Company (Houston, TX)

Classical Theatre Company (Houston, TX) is dedicated to boldly re-envisioning classical drama on the stage, in the community, and in the classroom through engaging and enlightening plays that brings them new life and relevance while maintaining the integrity that the works deserve. The Classical Theatre Company is the only professional theatre company in the Houston area that produces year round classical drama.

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Cygnet Theatre Company

Cygnet Theatre Company (San Diego, CA)

Cygnet Theatre Company (San Diego, CA) believes in the power of theatre to startle the soul, ignite debate and embrace the diversity of the community in which it serves. Cygnet Theatre Company is fearlessly committed to the dissection, examination and celebration of the human story through the medium of live theatre. To explore the human story, Cygnet curates thought-provoking seasons, featuring edgy Off-Broadway style works, classics and musicals that highlight issues and themes relevant to San Diego’s diverse community.

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South of Broadway Theatre Company

South of Broadway Theatre Company (Charleston, SC)

South of Broadway Theatre Company (Charleston, SC) produces theatre of the highest professional standards, ensuring diversity in programming to foster an enduring educational and culturally enriched environment. South of Broadway Theatre Company (SOBTC) was founded in 2000 with the vision to become South Carolina's first LORT Theatre.

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1812 Productions

1812 Productions (Philadelphia, PA)

1812 Productions (Philadelphia, PA) is dedicated to creating theatrical works of comedy and comedic works of theater that explore and celebrate our sense of community, our history and our humanity. The world needs more comedy and 1812 Productions was founded on the belief that laughter is a powerful communication tool. When people are laughing they are open and ready to connect, debate, listen, and engage.

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16th Street Theater

16th Street Theater (Berwyn, IL)

16th Street Theater (Berwyn, IL) exists to encourage debate, discussion and compassion amongst our community through the medium of intimate and diverse theater with the playwright as its central focus. Created to be a theater for people NOT going to the theater, and to give voice to all in Berwyn’s community. 16th Street is dedicated to artistic excellence, professionalism (paying artists a decent wage) diversity and affordability.

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Golden Thread Productions

Golden Thread Productions (San Francisco, CA)

Golden Thread Productions (San Francisco, CA) the first American theatre company focused on the Middle East, produces passionate and provocative plays from and about the Middle East that celebrate the multiplicity of its perspectives and identities. We are a developmental catalyst and vibrant artistic home to artists at various stages of their career that believes that immersing yourself in someone else's experience is the best way to appreciate their point of view. Golden Thread’s work is borderless and serves to reorient the United States-Middle East relationship.

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Synchronicity Theatre

Synchronicity Theatre (Atlanta, GA)

Synchronicity Theatre (Atlanta, GA) produces smart, gutsy and bold theatre to spark community connections and uplift the voices of women and girls. Synchronicity was founded in 1997 by four women with a desire to work collaboratively and bring challenging, meaningful theatre to Atlanta audiences. We believe in the power of bond between artist and audience, and our intimate stage brings us together to experience stories, music and drama as a community.

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Yellow Tree Theatre

Yellow Tree Theatre (Osseo, MN)

Yellow Tree Theatre (Osseo, MN) brings stories to life that ignite passion, inspire laughter and awaken possibility while exploring and celebrating the great complexities of the human spirit. We strive to be a welcoming artistic venue where people of all ages and walks of life can gather to experience authentic community, and to produce high-quality professional productions in the heart of the Northwest suburbs of Minneapolis, making live theatre more accessible to the community.

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Portland Playhouse

Portland Playhouse's purpose is to activate, surprise, delight and challenge in our lives by exposing diverse audiences to artistically forward shows. They envision a world awakened by the wonder of theatre.

 

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1st Stage

1st Stage encourages lifelong learning in the arts as a core value in Fairfax County by becoming a resource that connects the county to fresh, imaginative interpretations of classic and contemporary theatre work. It will work to create a strong cultural institution that complements the economic strengths of the community while helping to serve the creative needs of an emerging urban center.

 

 

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Bag & Baggage Productions

As a group of ambitious, professional theatre practitioners and educators, we inspire Oregonians to engage in creative, accessible and moving live-theatre experiences. Through our commitment to professional, text-based live theatre, we will make Hillsboro a renowned theatre destination for diverse audiences from Washington County and beyond.

 

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Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company

BETC's organizational structure includes a board of directors, six part-time staff members, and the artistic ensemble. Ensemble members are professional, experienced local actors, directors, designers, and dramaturgs. Some are Actors' Equity Association members, while others have terminal degrees and years of experience in their areas of expertise. Ensemble members’ voices help to shape the direction and vision of BETC's artistic work through ongoing conversations around production quality and through the annual play selection process. These artists represent BETC within the larger metropolitan community, and are highly visible, positive advocates for our work.

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Congo Square Theatre Company

Congo Square Theatre Company is an ensemble dedicated to artistic excellence. By producing definitive and transformative theatre, spawned from the African Diaspora as well as other world cultures, Congo Square Theatre Company seeks to establish itself as an institution of multicultural theatre.

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Kansas City Actors Theatre

The Actors Theatre brings professional drama to Kansas City, in a vibrant presentation for the virtual age. The Theatre, formed by a veteran collective of artists, reimagines modern classics in settings across the city. A war story at the National WWI Museum … a meditation on death at the Muehlebach Funeral Home. Each production is an experience, bringing the actors and their words into focus.

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Mildred’s Umbrella Theater Company

Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company seeks to challenge audiences and theatre artists by creating and performing bold, innovative and fresh theatrical works grounded in the best traditions of the dramatic arts. With a strong feminine presence in our artistic vision, we strive to feature the work of female playwrights, actors and directors, which promotes the empowerment of women through the performing arts.

 

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The NOLA Project

The NOLA Project is an ensemble-driven theatre company that strives to challenge, entertain, and engage diverse New Orleans audiences through high-quality and innovative performances of relevant great works, the development and production of new plays, and comprehensive educational opportunities for aspiring theatre artists. 

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San Francisco Playhouse

Founded by Bill English and Susi Damilano as a non-profit 501(c)3 organization in 2003, San Francisco Playhouse is the Bay Area’s fastest-growing theatre company and has been described as “a company that stages some of the most consistently high-quality work around.”

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The Serenbe Playhouse

Serenbe Playhouse believes that theatre as an art form has the unique power to illuminate the human experience. In pursuit of that vision, we produce artistically rich site-specific performances and programming that reduces the barriers between artists and audiences by immersing patrons in an environment that amplifies the beauty of nature, and provides opportunities for engagement, conversation, and collaboration.

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Theater Alliance

A catalyst for innovation and diversity, Theater Alliance is among DC’s pre-eminent theater companies, one that consistently produces thought provoking and socially pertinent work, successfully uniting audiences of all backgrounds through the power of creative presentation and participation.

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Theater Wit

Located in Chicago, IL, Theater Wit is led by four core values. Through laughter, Theater Wit connects with its community, building strong relationships of openness, trust, and camaraderie. With empathy and relevance, Theater Wit builds its programming, telling the stories of its community. With agility, TW makes critical and innovative decisions, creating new models and collaborative opportunities that address core challenges. The company provides an exceptional neighborhood theater experience for Chicago audiences, uniting its own aesthetic commitment to humor, surprise, intimacy and honest humanity with the finest contemporary work by its peers.

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Williamston Theatre

Williamston Theatre produces professional theatre that excites and engages audiences in Williamston, MI, while challenging us all to explore our lives. Williamston Theatre is an integral part of the cultural fabric of Michigan, making theatre for, by and about the people in this part of the world. The company pursues innovative collaboration in every aspect of their work, to establish a home for Midwest artists and engage audiences of diverse ages, cultures and economic backgrounds.

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Theatre B

Located in Fargo, ND, Theatre B engages regional audiences through innovative productions that are culturally and artistically invigorating. The company values creative work of high artistic integrity; a healthy ensemble and intentional family; the ongoing development of displaced professionals and emerging artists; thought-provoking art as inspiration for social action; the responsible stewardship of all resources; and the theatre as integral to a healthy cultural community.  The vision of Theatre B is to become a professional regional theatre built around a resident ensemble and enmeshed in the fabric of the community.

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the TEAM

The TEAM is a Brooklyn, NY based ensemble that creates new performance works that examine the experience of living in America today, and generates dialogue about our nation's past, present and future through national and international touring. Described as “Gertrude Stein meets MTV,” the company’s work crashes American history and mythology into modern stories to illuminate the current moment. They combine aggressive athleticism with emotional performances and intellectual rigor, keeping the brain, eyes and heart of the audience constantly stimulated.

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Amphibian Stage Productions

Located in Fort Worth, Texas, Amphibian Stage Productions seeks to produce innovative and engaging works of theatre that challenge the way we see the world around us. The company believes that theatre has the ability to forge a unique dialogue between performers and audience members enabling their desire to infuse new energy into this important art form. The company is widely recognized for its stylistically and thematically varied scripts that foster a deeper understanding of ourselves as members of the global community.

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Ars Nova

Ars Nova is committed to developing and producing theater, comedy and music artists in the early stages of their professional careers. Located in New York, NY the company’s unique development programs are designed to support outside-the-box thinking and encourage innovative, genre-bending work. By providing a safe environment where risk-taking and collaboration are paramount, Ars Nova gives voice to a new generation of artists and audiences, pushing the boundaries of live entertainment by nurturing creative ideas into smart, surprising new work.

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Forum Theatre

Located in Silver Spring, Maryland, Forum Theatre produces adventurous, relevant, and challenging plays from a diversity of voices that inspire discussion and build community -- and that are accessible, affordable, and entertaining. The company has aimed to be both the home for stories that provoke discussion and the place to host that discussion and want their plays to be a conversation with the audience. Known for strong ensemble casts, ambitious design concepts, and community focus – the company is committed to diverse programming reflecting the experiences and identities of their audience and neighbors.

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Keen Company

Located in New York, NY, Keen Company creates theater that provokes identification, reflection and emotional connection. In intimate productions of plays and musicals, the company tells stories in which people strive to live with integrity. Through its educational arm, Keen develops and produces new plays for high school audiences, expanding the repertoire of plays available for young people and creating new generations that embrace theatre. Keen seeks to build a lasting community of artists and audiences who share a passion for theater that champions sincerity and speaks to life’s profound moments.

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PlayGround

Located in San Francisco, CA, PlayGround is a leading Bay Area playwright incubator and theatre community hub. The mission of PlayGround is to support the development of significant new local voices for the theatre.  More than just another play development program, PlayGround fosters the creation of a true theatre community by nurturing the collaborative process between early career playwrights and established, professional actors and directors. The beneficiaries of our efforts are the writers, their collaborators and the audiences these artists serve – today and in the future.

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Red Bull Theater

Located in New York, NY, Red Bull Theater is dedicated to the presentation of vital and imaginative productions of heightened language plays and to the development of new plays written in a similar vein. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, Red Bull Theater engages the intellect and imagination of today's theatergoers through intimate and evocative stagings of great classic stories. Red Bull Theater aims to be in the vanguard of a new classical theater for the new century, creating a home for plays of heightened language and epic expression in intimate, imaginative productions.

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Rogue Machine Theatre

Rogue Machine Theatre serves the greater Los Angeles, California community in developing and nurturing emerging playwrights, introducing important contemporary works to Southern California, and engaging diverse audiences by presenting vital, invigorating productions. The company seeks to heighten public conversation on social and cultural issues by examining and evoking dialogue about who, what, where, and how we are as a culture.

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The House Theatre of Chicago

The House Theatre of Chicagounites Chicago, IL in the spirit of community through amazing feats of storytelling. The universality of the company’s stories makes The House the favorite of many non-traditional and younger theatre goers. The House Theatre of Chicago uses myth and spectacle to transform the landscape of theatre into a socially open and welcoming place for their community to engage in the ritual of storytelling. While the stories that they tell are epic in scope, the experience of them is intimate. The company brings people together, and in the tradition of Greek theatre, gives them a forum in which to laugh, cry, and experience catharsis together.

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The Catastrophic Theatre

The premier creator and producer of new work not otherwise available in Houston, TX, the company is dedicated to creating a meaningful exchange between artists and audiences through new work. With a pronounced emphasis on emotional experience, Catastrophic Theatre encourages diverse interpretations focusing on mystery, poetry, and a considered preference for questions rather than answers.

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16th Street Theater

Dedicated to artistic excellence, professionalism, diversity and affordability; the company exists to encourage debate, discussion and compassion among the community through the medium of intimate and diverse theater with the playwright as its central focus. As the only professional theater in Berwyn, IL, 16th Street serves and gives voice to all in the community, inviting audiences to experience not only their own stories but those of their neighbors.

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Constellation Theatre Company

Located in Washington, DC, Constellation Theatre Company's mission is to spark the curiosity and imagination of their audiences by bringing stories to life from all over the world. By opening their creative process to the community, the company cultivates interdisciplinary collaboration that unites the acting ensemble, the written word, visual spectacle, original music and movement to form an intimate and vibrant entertainment experience.

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The Cutting Ball Theater

Located in San Francisco, CA, The Cutting Ball Theater's mission is to develop productions of experimental new plays and re-visioned classics, with an emphasis on language and images. The company's goals are to honor and move forward the field of avant-garde theater and to provide an artistic home to playwrights, directors, actors and designers interested in challenging themselves and deepening their work through experimentation.

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Golden Thread Productions

Dedicated to exploring Middle Eastern cultures and identities as expressed around the globe. Located in San Francisco, CA, the company presents alternative perspectives of the Middle East by developing and producing theatrical work that is aesthetically varied and politically and viscerally engaging, thus making the Middle East a potent presence on the American stage and a treasured cultural experience.

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The Hypocrites

Located in Chicago, IL, The Hypocrites' mission is to make a Theater of Honesty. Through the balance of an unyielding emotional honesty and accepting a concept of "play," the company seeks to strengthen the connection between artist and audience, enriching the audience's imaginative experience. Ultimately, aiming, perhaps somewhat naively, to spread understanding within society, thereby minimizing cruelty.

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Prospect Theater Company

Located in New York, NY, Prospect Theater Company's goals are to connect communities of artists and audiences to each other and to theatrical history by re-interpreting classic plays and musicals, and to use these connections to collaboratively create new works. The company strives to connect theater's present to its past - in order to build its future.

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Theater Latte Da

The theater seeks to create new connections between story, music, artist, and audience by exploring and expanding the art of musical theater. Located in Minneapolis, MN, the company combines music and story to illuminate the breadth and depth of the human experience and produces work in a wide range of venues ideally suited for each production, treating Twin Cities audiences to a dynamic, one-of-a-kind theatrical experience.

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Third Rail Repertory Theatre

Provides a dynamic artistic home for theatre audiences in Portland, OR by fostering a professional local company. Through collaboration and discipline, it brings to life exceptional stories that provoke dialogue, encourage empathy, and inspire curiosity. The permanent ensemble shares an understanding of each other's working styles with a desire to deliver artistic excellence to Portland audiences on a consistent basis.

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True Colors Theatre Company

Creates a moveable feast of theatre grounded in the rich canon of African-American classics and branches out to include bold interpretations of world drama with a strong commitment to diverse new voices helping to develop those early-career writers. Located in Atlanta, GA, the company intends to be an important voice in the American discussion of diversity, supporting and propelling individuals and institutions in their quest for understanding.

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Actors' Shakespeare Project

Believes Shakespeare's words are urgently relevant to our times. An ensemble of resident company members in Somerville, Massachusetts, the company brings Shakespeare's words into the voices, bodies, and imaginations of its actors, audiences and neighborhoods. These projects inspire civic dialogue, build relationships between people, strengthen communities, and reveal something about what it means to be human here and now.

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ArtsWest

The mission of ArtsWest is to produce artistic events so compelling that they require conversation, improve the imagination, and promote cultural vibrancy as a core value for the communities of Seattle, Washington.

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CityRep

Serves Oklahoma City, Oklahoma's diverse artistic, educational and civic needs by providing dynamic professional theatre. The company's goal is to be a vibrant regional theatre that is vital to the cultural, educational and economic life of Oklahoma, and seeks to "Entertain, Enlighten and Inspire!"

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Know Theatre of Cincinnati

Creates explosive and evocative live entertainment in the heart of Cincinnati, Ohio. The company envisions a world awakened to its collective possibility, and values a playful artistic community where artists can collaborate and grow.

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NC Stage

In Asheville, North Carolina, produces plays that celebrate and examine the human spirit and experience. The company works with a great attention to detail and presents work in an intimate theatrical setting in an effort to change audience's expectations of art and theatre.

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The New Jersey Repertory

Located in Long Branch, New Jersey, The New Jersey Repertory Company's mission is to develop and produce new plays and to make a lasting contribution to the American stage. The theater is committed to nurturing the work of not only established writers but new and unknown playwrights as well, and maintains an open-submission policy.

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The Rogue Theatre

The mission is to create the highest quality theatre possible, challenging, stretching, and invigorating the community. Located in Tucson, Arizona, the company presents plays which offer complex and provocative points of view related to important social, political, and personal issues.

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The Play Company

Located in New York City, is dedicated to advancing an international view of contemporary playwriting. The company was formed to address the community's lack of access to plays from other parts of the world, and to promote theatre as a means to engage with the ideas, issues and artists that shape our time.

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The Theatre @ Boston Court

In Pasadena, California, produces passionate, artist-driven theatre that challenges both artist and audience. The Theatre @ Boston Court urges its artists to fearlessly and passionately pursue their unique voice and vision, and focuses on nurturing playwrights and new play development. Play selection encompasses a wide variety of genres, with a special emphasis on works which are inherently theatrical, textually rich, and visually arresting.

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Upstream Theater

A professional production company dedicated to presenting new works and the inventive staging of classic plays, with a special focus on joint ventures involving artists from other countries. The company offers St. Louis, Missouri a theater that is spiritual and sentient, witty and engaged, multilayered and syncretic.

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Watts Village Theater Company

A multicultural urban company that seeks to inspire its community with an appreciation of all cultures through new works about contemporary social issues. Also, since 1996, WVTC has been a leader in providing acting and theatrical performance workshops for at-risk youth in Watts and South Los Angeles.

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FUSION Theatre Company

Incites, celebrates, and inspires community through the art of story telling. It is dedicated to professional excellence, the awakening of a new audience, and the inspiration of children. FUSION produces new plays and fresh stagings of classic plays that speak to modern audiences of unique and diverse demographics. Currently, FUSION is the only professional producing theatre company in the state of New Mexico.

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Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company

A community-focused, socially-conscious, Equity theater company. Its missions are to create new theatrical works based on research within various communities, produce lesser-known works by master and contemporary playwrights, and educate youth in all areas of theater. Mo`olelo is the Hawaiian word for story and reflects the vision to tell powerful stories that are as diverse as the islands of Hawaii.

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Pig Iron Theatre Company

Founded as an interdisciplinary ensemble, Pig Iron Theatre Company is dedicated to the creation of new and exuberant performance works that defy easy categorization. Pig Iron calls itself a "dance-clown-theatre ensemble." Individual pieces have been called "soundscape and spectacle," "cabaret-ballet," and "avant-garde shadow puppet dessert-theatre." Constantly devising new work and touring, the company has a hard time sitting still.

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Rude Mechanicals

An ensemble-based company located in Austin, Texas committed to the collaborative creation of brave new works for the stage, the development of new voices in the theatre, and to forming alliances with other artists locally, nationally, and internationally. Rude Mechs has created a mercurial slate of original theatrical productions that represents a genre-defying cocktail of big ideas, cheap laughs, and dizzying spectacle. What these works hold in common is the use of play to make performance, the use of theaters as meeting places for audiences and artists, and the use of humor as tool for intellectual investigation.

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Synchronicity Theatre

Activates communities toward social change through powerful, transformative theatrical experiences. Synchronicity supports women artists, forges long-term and effective community partnerships, and develops new work. Synchronicity's work bridges the line between art and social action. Founded in 1997 by four women dedicated to collaboratively bringing challenging, meaningful theatre to Atlanta audiences, Synchronicity now produces a full five play season and presents community outreach and education programing.

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TheatreSquared

Northwest Arkansas's regional theatre, producing professional work that is challenging and heartfelt, intimate and entertaining. TheatreSquared believes that theatre - done well and with passion - can transform lives and communities. It envisions a theatre that thrives as an essential, cultural, educational and economic component of our community - of the Ozarks, of America, and of the world.

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TimeLine Theatre Company

In the midst of its 15th season, TimeLine Theatre is a professional theatre located in Chicago with a rapidly growing audience and donor base from Chicago and its suburbs. TimeLine Theatre is dedicated to presenting stories inspired by history that connect with today's social and political issues. The collaborative artistic team produces provocative theatre and educational programs that engage, entertain and enlighten. TimeLine's artistic goals start and grow from the stage - where live performance intimately connects people and illuminates ideas and issues.

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Transport Group Theatre Company

An off-Broadway theatre company in New York City that stages new works and reimagines revivals by American writers with visually progressive productions of emotionally classic stories to explore the challenges of relationships and identity today. The company aims to transport audiences, and since its founding in 2001, has staged seven plays and eight musicals, including seven world premieres and eight revivals.

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Buntport Theater Company

A vibrant ensemble of six people located in Denver, Colorado. Intent on creating innovative and affordable entertainment, the company writes and produces each production. Each piece grows from a collaborative process, relying on the combined skills of the whole ensemble. Known for unusual adaptations and quirky original comedies, Buntport seasons are packed, debuting several new full-length productions in addition to a variety of less traditional programming. Buntport describes it's work as "on the fringe of traditional theater while remaining super accessible."

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Triad Stage

Guided by core values of artistic risk, excellence, community, learning, inclusion, collaboration, rejuvenation, partnerships, impacting North Carolina and fostering a unique Southern voice, Triad Stage seeks to strengthen community, provoke dialogue and delight audiences. From classics to world premieres, we are invested in innovative theatricality, creating an artistic home for challenge and growth. Triad Stage strives to envision a new American theater rooted in our community while engaged with the world.

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The Flea Theater, Inc

Seeks to raise the standards of Off-Off-Broadway for artists and audiences alike, proving that the spontaneity and surprise of downtown performance need not come at the cost of consistent and high-quality programming. Since 1996, we have committed ourselves to the creation of artistic opportunity and the establishment of safe and welcoming conditions on both sides of the footlights. This mission has allowed The Flea to premiere hundreds of new works, discover dozens of new voices, garner important accolades and awards, attract the country's leading artistic talents, and build one of the youngest audience demographics in the city.

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Synetic Theater

Based in Arlington County, Synetic Theater is the DC metro-area's premier physical theater company — fusing drama, mime, movement, and dance — with a mission of enriching and advancing theater arts in the nation's capital, as well as building a national presence to become America's premier physical theater.

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Silk Road Theatre Project

Showcases playwrights of Asian, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean backgrounds, whose works address themes relevant to the peoples of the Silk Road and their Diaspora communities. Through the mediums of theatre, video, education, and advocacy, we aim to deepen and expand representation in American culture.

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Profile Theatre

Mission is to celebrate the playwright's contribution to live theatre. Each year, Profile produces a season of plays devoted to a single playwright, allowing the audience to explore, in-depth, the playwright's full range of vision, talent, and artistry. Profile is one of only two companies in the country to focus on a single playwright each year.

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Curious Theatre Company

Mission is to engage the community in important contemporary issues through provocative modern theatre. As one of only two full time professional theatres in Denver County, one of Curious' organizational goals is to develop a middle tier of professional theatre in Denver through the compensation of artists for their work, including local union and non-union actors.

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Company One

Theatre in Residence at the Boston Center for the Arts, redefines the typical theatrical experience by developing, producing, and promoting socially relevant plays and innovative educational programming that appeal to, represent and include Boston's diverse urban communities. Company One is the only not-for-profit theatre production company in Boston that is dedicated to diversifying and redefining Boston theatre for both the artists and the audience. Since its inception in 1999, Company One has been instrumental in bringing socially and politically relevant theatre to the Boston area.

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Boise Contemporary Theatre

Founded in 1997, BCT creates, produces, and presents vibrant and dynamic professional theater that illuminates enduring themes while exploring contemporary issues and ideas.

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About Face Theatre

Founded in 1995 by Kyle Hall and Eric Rosen to create exceptional, innovative and adventurous plays to advance the national dialogue on gender and sexual identity and to challenge and entertain audiences in Chicago, across the nation, and around the world. About Face is committed to innovation, artistic excellence and community transformation, and sustains its core values through three programming arms: its award-winning mainstage season; its ambitious new works program; and its nationally recognized education programs that collectively reach approximately 5,000 Illinois students and teachers each year.

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1812 Productions

Dedicated to entertaining, educating and exploring a variety of issues through the medium of comedy. It is committed to supporting and hiring local theatre professionals, and to making its productions accessible to the diverse general public with particular focus on the greater Philadelphia region.

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General Criteria

Thank you for your interest in the National Theatre Company Grants. Our committee is currently reviewing the application guidelines for the upcoming cycle of grants. Please stay tuned for further information on what the guidelines will be for the upcoming cycle of National Theatre Company Grants.

Thank you for your patience.

 

Contact Us

The American Theatre Wing welcomes your questions, opinions and concerns.

Support the National Theatre Company Grants

The National Theatre Company Grants are made possible through the generosity of our donors.  Here are some things your donation could do:

  • $10,000 could sponsor a grant to a theatre company
  • $5,000 could sponsor the grants reception
  • $2,500 could pay for the professional development workshops
  • $1,000 could sponsor travel and housing for a theatre company
  • A donation in any amount provides critical support to an emerging theatre company

To support this program, simply click on the button below and select “National Theatre Company Grants” after you enter your name and address, or call us at 212-765-0606.